The ground was muddy and soaked by the heavy rain. Thick raindrops hit her face, wetting her clothes, but she didn’t feel it. Numbness was all she felt. She saw it happening, disbelieving. She saw how the light emerged from the tip of her wand and formed a mist around the sixteen year-old boy who stood a few steps from her. The dark trees around them made this night even darker than it already was.

Harry wasn’t, anymore, this boy with this damned scar. He was no longer the one who had lost so much. He was no more the Boy Who Lived. He was only a simple sixteen-year-old boy who felt as if he were home, as if he were saved. Who could stare at a girl and fall for her, ever so slowly. But he wasn’t a normal boy. That’s why he sat here and thought of how he could possibly escape from all of this. Only months before, he didn’t want to be human anymore, and now he wished he could be, just a little bit more.

Twilight was being overtaken by the advancing darkness. The already deep purple of the sky slowly deepened to black. On the horizon, the first tiny stars could be seen as a light breeze announced the coming night. Night brought its own kind of silence as all voices issuing from the illuminated windows back in the Burrow died out one after another.

Harry opened his eyes again and stared at the ceiling while in the back of his mind a small voice kept asking, “Why me? Why didn’t he choose Neville? I don’t want this, let somebody else take my place…. why can’t I be someone, anyone else than Harry Potter?”

“Harry!” she exclaimed happily. Her eyes were shining with happiness now and a smile appeared on her pale face. It still amazed him time and again how she seemed to light up from within when she saw him. Not once had she let him see her sadness or resignation when he visited, though he still sensed it despite her bright façade.